Sorry for not getting back to these questions sooner
Does Excalibur has an edit mode for taking screenshots like we have in BC (or something similar)?
I'm not sure what you mean by an edit mode that is in BC?
Or perhaps a more controllable version of Cinematic mode?
It will have a cinematic camera, yes.
I'd like to say that having the hardpoint editor and other features accessible ingame is sort of immersion breaking for me. At the very least, have a "hardcore" mode toggleable in options, or have access limited to your instant action interface or something like that.
Just because the tools are built into the game (engine) doesn't mean that they are presented as part of the game (play).
Now that has me interested, would the turrets actually face the target?
Wouldn't be much use if they didnt lol
how much in depth can we get with interiors? (i assume that modding the interiors involves the same process as the ships.)
Much closer than it is for Bridge Commander. Making interiors firstly involves modelling the set pieces and setting them up. Once that is done a modder would be able to drag and drop modular pieces of decks to quickly build the deck structures. This is going to be pretty complex to get working but it will enable a huge amount of interiors to be built without massively high skill levels.
is this based on individuals hardware factor, or does the engine limit how much of the physical interior can be modeled?
Because the set pieces are all in chunks this isn't an issue. Even if they weren't Evolved culls individual faces and textures which cannot be seen on screen just like most other modern game engines, so it wouldn't be an issue.
Might have forgot this from the hardpoints video or it wasn't mentioned at all but how does object rescaling work? Do all of the hardpoints scale up/down with it like in Armada or Legacy or will it be a manual operation?
I'm not sure I have tried that in the HPE yet. Certainly when you transform an object with children those children will also move.
How will star systems and planets work? (Landing/crashing on planets, supernovas, creating star systems and planets...)
That is a pretty broad question lol. Star systems are created in a similar fashion to hardpointing a ship (we actually are creating a solar system hardpoint in the background as you do it). Planets do orbit around stars but we stopped short of making the stars orbit around the galaxy due to the complexities that would bring in. Travelling around the universe will be completely fluid, so you can lose warp power at any time and get stuck in dead space
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thank you again mark... you make me happy to hear your comments in regards to what the computer and power networks functionality will bring
cant wait.
Thanks, can't wait to see you all trying it out.